The Genex Building and Lost Socialist Dreams of Former Yugoslavia
An amazing triumph of Brutalist architecture that symbolizes the yearning for a better future
The Western City Gate, also known as the Genex Building, in Belgrade, Serbia is certainly an eye-catcher. It’s a 36-story skyscraper with two towers connected by a two-story bridge that led to a revolving restaurant (that never ended up revolving). It was designed by Mihajlo Mitrović in 1977 in a Brutalist style.
Its exterior comprises windows and exposed concrete. The towers are not the same height, with one being 35 floors and the other 26 floors, creating a unique asymmetrical look. The tall tower is for residential units and is still in use today, while the smaller tower was made for commercial units and is currently abandoned.
It is close to Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport, making it one of the first things you see when flying into the city, and thus it became an important fixture of the Belgrade skyline. Funded by the state-run Genex companies, once the USSR and subsequently Yugoslavia collapsed, the building went through challenging times just like the country itself. Today, over the business tower lays a massive billboard to maintain the upkeep costs of the building.
The building was designed and built when Serbia was still a part of former Yugoslavia. Josip Tito sought to create a new form of socialism that differed from the Soviet model. This building was built under an initiative to revitalize infrastructure and as a part of the New Belgrade (Novi Beograd) plan. Novi Beograd is an area of the city that was uninhabited until 1948, after the creation of Yugoslavia. The buildings constructed in this area became a source of immense pride for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
After the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Tito had a vision for a new form of socialism. Instead of state-run collectivization programs, he pushed socialist self-management. Managers of socially owned cooperative businesses would be held to account by worker councils, which were led by employees through voting. Managers were appointed by employees, which offered a different lens as to the practical implementation of Marxist ideology.
The Soviet-Yugoslav split also led Yugoslavia to lead the Non-Aligned movement, which sought to exist outside of the Eastern and Western Blocs. From 1960 to 1980, Yugoslavia was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
The design of the Genex Building highlighted Belgrade’s modernity and showed its determination to rival Moscow or New York City. The construction of the Genex Building was meant to prove the modernity of former Yugoslavia and bring pride to the nation. It was the largest of these projects and was meant to highlight just the beginning of the prosperous future of Yugoslavia.
Upon the release of its architectural design, the Genex building was met with a huge volume of skepticism and controversy for its unusual design. It took years for the project to be passed and for construction to begin. Upon completion, it came to dominate the Belgrade skyline to a mixed reception from locals.
This vision of the future symbolized by this structure was unfortunately never realized. The death of Josip Tito and the weakening power of the Eastern Bloc halted the progress of Yugoslavia. The nation took IMF loans that pushed the country into heavy debt. After the fall of the USSR, the leadership of the country met with President George H.W. Bush and agreed to massive economic restructuring with wage freezes, revaluing the currency, and deep budget cuts through austerity.
Economic discontent allowed for long-repressed ethnic tensions within the country to boil into an all-out war on various fronts of nationalist organizations. The breakup of Yugoslavia mirrored the end of the USSR and the violent structural readjustments that happened in socialist countries throughout the 90s. This lead to the NATO bombing of Serbia and the end of this noble dream.
Since the fall of former Yugoslavia, The Genex building has been a relic of the unrealized dreams of the former Yugoslavia, hope towards progress, development, and unity. Like former Yugoslav nations themselves, the building is dilapidated and in need of repair. The commercial tower is currently not in use while the residential section still houses over 4,500 people.
Graffiti covers the lower part of the structure and much of the commercial section of the building is home to squatters. The debilitated state of the building is hidden by a giant advertisement poster that is almost as prominent as the building itself.
The Genex Building boasts a mystifying design that exemplifies what people love and hate about Brutalist architecture. Brutalism remains a controversial movement but the Genex building certainly conveyed the goals of the movement for modern, collective housing that was accessible to the working classes, while still being an attractive feature of the city skyline. The cold aesthetic of the Brutalist design is contrasted with the warm feelings that this era of progress invokes.
It is now recognized as an important cultural monument in Serbia. From the forefront of Yugoslav innovation, this building became a symbol of a hauntological retrofuturism that reminds Belgrade of its glory in a former era. The lofty, high-concept design goals of this building that were once resented have become what many in Serbia today would dream of. In that, it has become a symbol of pride in the nation of Serbia. Yearning for what some call the benevolent dictatorship of Tito and the economic stability he created, the Genex Building reminds people of a triumphant era.
